Unions

Your article about New York school custodians is the best illustration I have seen to explain why most people in the country today are anti-union (Part I, May 14). To pay a school custodian up to $63,000 a year--more than school principals--goes beyond being ridiculous and reaches the point of obscenity.

Unions, such as the AFL-CIO, wouldn’t have to spend millions on television PR campaigns if they stopped using strong-arm tactics to extract exorbitant contracts from both private and government employers.

But all the PR campaigns in the world won’t get consumers to “look for the union label” when they can get the same product or service for half price from a non-union company.

Nobody is suggesting a return to the days of sweatshops, but unions today seem to be counterproductive and more interested in featherbedding and protecting incompetent workers from disciplinary actions than they are in doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

An ideal solution to the continuous acrimony between unions and management would be profit-sharing plans.

OVID GOODE

Pacoima